The present invention relates to combustion exhaust pollution control, and more particularly to pollution control for heavy vehicles such as trucks and buses.
In the past, exhaust pollution controls for Diesel as well as gasoline trucks and buses have been less stringently regulated than for automobiles. Thus while great strides have been made for cleaning up exhaust emissions of automobiles, trucks, buses, and many stationary power plants remain as heavy sources of pollution.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,340,859 to Williamson discloses an internal combustion engine whose exhaust is fed through a scrubber tank having a baffle and liquid in the tank extending to above the bottom of the baffle, at least a portion of the scrubbed exhaust gases being returned to an intake manifold of the engine. U.S. Pat. No. 3,962,864 to Albert et al. discloses an exhaust gas cooler and scrubber for a gas turbine engine, the hot exhaust gas flowing through a bed of flints that also receives a supply of water which carries calcium carbonate and manganese sulfate for recovering sulphur in the form of calcium sulfate from the exhaust gas. U.S. Pat. No. 5,035,115 to Ptasinski discloses an Otto cycle Diesel engine having superheated water injection for steam operation, heating of the water being done in a series of counterflow heat exchangers. During fossil fuel operation, exhaust gases flow through a water reservoir for washing out smoke particulates, and a catalytic converter for filtering and reducing oxides of nitrogen.
Typical prior art exhaust gas treatment, especially for trucks, buses and large stationary power plants, nevertheless suffers from one or more of the following disadvantages:
1. They are ineffective in removing a desired proportion of pollutants; PA1 2. They degrade engine performance; and PA1 3. They are expensive to produce and maintain in that they consume expensive materials such as platinum and tungsten that are typically inaccessibly located within welded enclosures.
Thus there is a need for an apparatus for removing pollution from exhaust gases of large internal combustion power plants that avoids the disadvantages of the prior art.